Faith Assembly: The Legal Troubles Begin - Episode 163 Branham Research
Support the show:
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The discussion on the William Branham Historical Research podcast, hosted by John Collins and Cheno Ross, delves into the troubling history of Hobart Freeman and the legal issues that arose from his ministry. They discuss the pattern of abuse and the exploitation of followers within various religious movements, noting how leaders like Freeman manipulated their congregations, resulting in significant harm and legal scrutiny. They highlight instances where followers, indoctrinated with the belief of spiritual healing, suffered severe consequences, including death, due to the rejection of medical treatment. The podcast also addresses the broader issue of how religious leaders control information to maintain their influence over their followers.
The conversation emphasizes the difficulty ex-cult members face in adjusting to life outside the cult. Many struggle with residual indoctrination and find it challenging to reconcile their beliefs with new, healthier religious environments. The hosts stress the importance of therapy and proper guidance for those recovering from such experiences. They also discuss the legislative changes that occurred in response to the alarming death rates within these groups, showcasing the evolving legal landscape aimed at protecting vulnerable individuals from the harmful practices of exploitative religious leaders.
00:00 Introduction
01:01 Legal Aspects of Religious Exploitation
03:42 The Ongoing Influence of Hobart Freeman
04:37 The Struggle of Ex-Cult Members
07:59 Historical Context and Media Coverage
10:03 Challenges in Prosecuting Religious Leaders
14:50 The Manipulation of Religious Teachings
17:01 Coping Mechanisms for Ex-Cult Members
20:05 Legislative Changes and Their Impact
25:20 High-Profile Legal Cases
30:09 The Role of Media in Exposing Abuses
34:10 The Responsibility of Religious Leaders
36:43 Personal Reflections and Experiences
40:10 The Use of Fear and Manipulation in Cults
45:06 Long-term Effects of Cult Indoctrination
51:13 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
______________________
– Support the channel: https://www.patreon.com/branham
– Subscribe to the channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBSpezVG15TVG-lOYMRXuyQ
– Visit the website: https://william-branham.org
– Follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WilliamBranhamOrg
– Follow on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@william.m.branham
– Follow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/wmbhr
– Buy the books: https://william-branham.org/site/books
https://www.patreon.com/branham
Available on Spotify, Google, and Apple Podcasts:
https://william-branham.org/podcast
The discussion on the William Branham Historical Research podcast, hosted by John Collins and Cheno Ross, delves into the troubling history of Hobart Freeman and the legal issues that arose from his ministry. They discuss the pattern of abuse and the exploitation of followers within various religious movements, noting how leaders like Freeman manipulated their congregations, resulting in significant harm and legal scrutiny. They highlight instances where followers, indoctrinated with the belief of spiritual healing, suffered severe consequences, including death, due to the rejection of medical treatment. The podcast also addresses the broader issue of how religious leaders control information to maintain their influence over their followers.
The conversation emphasizes the difficulty ex-cult members face in adjusting to life outside the cult. Many struggle with residual indoctrination and find it challenging to reconcile their beliefs with new, healthier religious environments. The hosts stress the importance of therapy and proper guidance for those recovering from such experiences. They also discuss the legislative changes that occurred in response to the alarming death rates within these groups, showcasing the evolving legal landscape aimed at protecting vulnerable individuals from the harmful practices of exploitative religious leaders.
00:00 Introduction
01:01 Legal Aspects of Religious Exploitation
03:42 The Ongoing Influence of Hobart Freeman
04:37 The Struggle of Ex-Cult Members
07:59 Historical Context and Media Coverage
10:03 Challenges in Prosecuting Religious Leaders
14:50 The Manipulation of Religious Teachings
17:01 Coping Mechanisms for Ex-Cult Members
20:05 Legislative Changes and Their Impact
25:20 High-Profile Legal Cases
30:09 The Role of Media in Exposing Abuses
34:10 The Responsibility of Religious Leaders
36:43 Personal Reflections and Experiences
40:10 The Use of Fear and Manipulation in Cults
45:06 Long-term Effects of Cult Indoctrination
51:13 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
______________________
– Support the channel: https://www.patreon.com/branham
– Subscribe to the channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBSpezVG15TVG-lOYMRXuyQ
– Visit the website: https://william-branham.org
– Follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WilliamBranhamOrg
– Follow on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@william.m.branham
– Follow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/wmbhr
– Buy the books: https://william-branham.org/site/books
Transcript
00:00You
00:31Hello and welcome to another episode of the William Branham historical research
00:35podcast. I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Branham
00:40Historical Research at william-branham.org, and with me I have my co-host,
00:45minister, and friend Cheno Ross, the voice of the Understanding Scripture and Truth
00:51by Cheno D. Ross YouTube channel. Together we're examining the history of
00:56Hobart Freeman, and today, Cheno, we're getting into some of the legal aspects
01:02of what happened, and it is the problem that I have noticed that is just
01:08recurring throughout history of these guys that people put their trust in, and
01:13they abuse that trust with their power, and a lot of people, you know, they're
01:19getting sick, they're dying, they're losing their family fortunes, and there
01:23is really no law that the police can use to come and get these guys when this
01:29happens. So I've noted it with John Alexander Dowie. I have, you know, going
01:35through the latter reign, you can see it across many of the ministries of these
01:39guys where they're just robbing the people blind and people are dying, and
01:43people still continue to put their faith in them, and I continued to witness to
01:49some extent that growing up in the church that I came from. So very glad
01:54we're bringing this topic to the surface because I think it is a problem with the
01:59legal system that should be changed. I don't even know you need me, John. You
02:04could just keep on talking. I learned as much from you about all of these shadowy
02:11figures from the 20th century as you learned from me about Hobart Freeman. The
02:16Dowie's, the Bosworth's, Branham, the Hall guy from, wasn't he in Tennessee? I can't
02:25remember his first name. Franklin Hall. Yes, yes, yes. All I could think of was Tom
02:31T. Hall, the country singer. No, Franklin Hall, we'll give him this. There were
02:37probably a lot of skinny people in his cult, and we need more of that today, I
02:41think. It's just a sign of society. I don't know whether to bless you or curse
02:49you because ever since I've been on these podcasts, my life has become very
02:54busy. Busier than it's supposed to be here in semi-retirement. I'm just so
03:01amazed, 40 years after someone's death, that there is this much interest, and
03:09there are these many people too, John. They are everywhere.
03:13Faith Assembly wasn't just a church in a cornfield in Wilma, Indiana, and it wasn't
03:20just the satellite groups around that area, and it wasn't just the satellite
03:28groups in some foreign countries like Germany and Switzerland and Australia and
03:32Canada. They're just these little home groups that that were following Hobart
03:37Freeman for years. But what is so surprising to me is after his death,
03:44many of these people didn't even come into this message until Hobart Freeman
03:49was long dead and gone. And you would think, now wait a minute, I'm listening to
03:55these faith and healing messages by this man that died of all these illnesses.
04:01Isn't there a contradiction somewhere in there? Evidently not. Not in their minds.
04:07They come right into it, maybe in the 90s, 10 years after Hobart died, they come
04:14into it, and they latch on to it like a dog on a bone, like
04:20original people there, and they're not letting go. And you can't even seem
04:26to talk them out of it, but there are enough who have seen the light, and I
04:31have no idea how they find you and your podcast, but they do. Yeah, you know,
04:39people have no idea what happens behind the scenes, but it is almost a full-time
04:43job managing the emails and phone calls. And I do video conferences sometimes
04:49with people who have escaped, and what I found is that there are a lot of people
04:54who thought they had escaped years ago from some of these things, but what they
05:00really did was they bottled it up, and they needed therapy. They didn't go to
05:05see a therapist, and so forever in the back of their minds they have this cult
05:10indoctrination that plagues them. And so they're fascinated by it. They keep... a lot
05:17of them, you know, even in support groups they talk about this. They will go watch
05:20cult documentaries because in the back of their mind they know what has happened
05:25to them, and they haven't really processed what happened to them. So there
05:29are people... like one guy I was talking to over the phone, he... in fact, he was a
05:34Hobart Freeman, ex-Hobart Freeman guy. He said he basically just monitors the web
05:40for anything new on Hobart Freeman, and when the alert comes up he's watching
05:45the next YouTube. So I'm assuming he's watching everyone that we've made so far.
05:49Oh, I'm sure. And the ones that I have talked to, several, say that every six
05:56months they'll just do a Google search, and maybe they... maybe they... maybe they go a
06:00year, and they'll do a Google search, Hobart Freeman Faith Assembly. And again,
06:06we're talking 40 years after Hobart's death, and, you know, 20 years at least
06:10after the end of Faith Assembly as a church, you know, as an individual local
06:15church. They will do that Google search just to see, is there anything new that I
06:20can find? I mentioned this before, and I appreciate you showing it on your
06:25screen before too, John, that there is a... there are these places online. Tomax 7,
06:33T-O-M-A-X 7, is just a fascinating site that's been going on for 20 years. I
06:39think a guy named Tom Gauffin put that up, started it back in the early 2000s,
06:44and it is... I mean, it is... it's a study. It's a sociological, historical, religious
06:54study in itself. To see the sense of loss and just floundering in life that
07:03these people are experiencing, many of them haven't even been able to go back
07:08to church. Or if they go back to church, I think you can testify to this, something
07:13is said, a verse is used, or a phrase is used, and it just triggers all of this
07:19stuff in their mind. I mean, I actually sat last night and read a few of them, and
07:24I've read them all before, where as soon as a lady heard this, she just burst out
07:29crying and had to leave church and wouldn't go back. And there are some
07:33other Facebook groups. They are support groups. They are, let me share my
07:39experience. What was your experience? So, I mean, I'm a hundred percent in tune and
07:47in belief with what you're doing. And you and I talked about this on an
07:52earlier podcast, where we were just talking about some of the general things
07:56that you're gonna find across the board in cults. That it's fairly consistent
08:00across the board, which I don't think most of us... I didn't know. I think you
08:05know more about this than I do, but I don't think the average person realizes
08:09how similar the things are. They just know what they came out out of, and
08:15they just thought, wow, that was terrible. How did I allow that to happen to me? And
08:20one of the general themes of these platforms is people beat themselves up
08:26and say, how could I have believed that? But, you know, hundreds and thousands of
08:32people have gone down the same path. You know, we're humans. You know, you catch us
08:38at a vulnerable time in our life. Maybe, you know, we're just too young. Maybe we're
08:43going through a divorce. You know, who knows? You just catch people in a
08:46vulnerable time of their life, and the cults are very good at sucking you in
08:51into their web. So anyway, we were talking last time, John, about the
08:58series of newspaper articles. There was one that came out in the Fort Wayne News
09:03Sentinel, and another in the Times Union, Warsaw, Indiana newspaper that really
09:09shone the spotlight on what was happening at Faith Assembly as far as
09:13the deaths were concerned. And I just wanted to make one personal comment, and
09:20that is this, that we're taking some big swings at Hobart Freeman and big swings
09:25at Faith Assembly, and it's not like we haven't all had our own mistakes and
09:29faults. And, you know, I've been a public speaker my whole life. I've got more than
09:34twice as many messages that I preach, so you better believe you can find plenty
09:39of errors and misstatements and wrong facts and wrong emphases in my life. My
09:46goal has always been to improve, to eliminate those, and the reason you don't
09:50hear about me and my mistakes is I'm a nobody. But whenever you're a big leader
09:57with a far-flung audience and a widespread influence, then those matters
10:04need to be addressed. If there's some little guy preaching down here in the
10:07corner to 20 people and he's bundling all the scriptures up, who cares, you know?
10:12He's not really affecting anybody. But somebody like Dr. Freeman and the people
10:18that you have discussed in the past, you know, they are really, really affecting
10:22people and affecting people negatively. So we have, we have, I've made critical
10:28statements against Dr. Freeman, and I think that they're, I think that they're
10:33warranted, you know. We've talked some about, you know, these dreams and visions
10:39and prophecies and revelations and his ministry is based on this and based on
10:44that. But I want to just be clear and say I do believe that the Holy Spirit does
10:52still move today. I do believe that the Holy Spirit can give a dream and can, and
10:58can give an impression or can give a vision. It won't be anything that adds to
11:04anything that's in the written scripture. It'll just be one of those cases like
11:08where Paul, after he had been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to travel and
11:13evangelize in certain areas of Asia Minor, he ends up in Troas wondering,
11:18where do we go next? What do we do next? Well, he gets a vision. There's a man in
11:23Macedonia saying, will you come over and help us? And that's exactly what Paul did.
11:27That didn't add anything to the Bible. It's no doctrinal stuff or anything like
11:32that. So last time we were talking about that Fort Wayne series of articles that
11:38came out, and that was early in the spring of 1983, and I've got this little
11:43journal, this little photo album of my years in the ministry. This is 1983. I put
11:50pictures of people, and then I just kind of document some of the important things
11:55that were happening in our church during this time period. And listen to what I
12:01said on April the 22nd to the 24th. This was in our local church, and this does
12:08tie in to what's going on at Faith Assembly. And I said the Holy Spirit came
12:12down in such a way that we spent this Friday and Sunday service on our faith
12:15before the Lord. The whole church went on a three-day fast beginning on April the
12:2124th. My next entry, May the 4th, due to the happenings at Faith Assembly, the
12:30news media contacted us and came out to do a report. So I'm not asking anybody, I
12:37don't expect anybody to believe what I had just read, that we had a moving
12:43of the Holy Spirit in our church not even a week prior to this news report,
12:50the television stations in the Twin Cities coming out and visiting us. We
12:56wouldn't have been prepared for that. We had no idea what was going on at Faith
13:00Assembly. And to have cameras and news reporters show up at our church door and
13:05say, hey, we'd like a comment on Faith Assembly and the newspaper
13:09articles. Like, what articles are you talking about? You know, I had to go get
13:14those after the fact. So, you know, my point is, I think the Lord does still
13:19speak and does still move. And I'm not asking anybody, including you, and you're
13:24my friend, I'm not asking anybody to believe that. And the reason you can't
13:28ask anybody to believe anything, because of all the nonsense that goes on out
13:32there. But I'm thankful that the Holy Spirit can lead us. It's just, you know,
13:41whatever you predict, it has to come to pass. That's number one. If it
13:47doesn't, we're throwing that out with yesterday's trash. It needs to point
13:51everybody to Jesus and not to ourself. And that's the problem with Hobart's
13:57visions and dreams and revelations. They were all about him. He was talking
14:03himself up. I think William Bramham was talking himself up. If we've got some
14:09true revelations, they're not going to be talking us up. Yeah, you know, you're
14:14hitting on several points that I want to further emphasize, because there's a
14:19reason why I chose the structure that I chose for everything that I do on this
14:24podcast and on the website. And it's a common problem. There is a known
14:30problem for police investigators whenever they investigate a crime scene
14:34and they interview the people that are there. Because you'll have five different
14:38people who tell you five different stories, and it isn't that they're, that
14:43any of them are lying. It's that they, that's the way that they perceived what
14:47happened. They tell the story as they saw it. So the way that you saw
14:52Freeman may not match the way that another person saw Freeman. Complicate
14:57that fact by the way that a cult controls the information. So when I first
15:03began all of this, I started telling my story and I got lambasted from all over
15:09the world. No, the Branham cult is not like this. Well, I was there. I witnessed
15:13many of these things, but it wasn't their perspective. And so I start
15:19publishing the history and it's really shocking at that point because I may
15:24have one small piece of the puzzle and the cult leaders have hidden the vast
15:29majority of the rest of the pieces to the puzzle. So with this one piece tied
15:34to my experience, it looks one certain way. And it isn't until I discover all
15:39those pieces that they're hiding from me that I can get the better picture. And so
15:43this is an evolving history. It's one that I tell what pieces that I have and
15:49then let it grow. And I've learned to limit what I tell because I may not have
15:54all the other pieces. That's right. The other aspect of control, and I want to
15:59strongly emphasize this, you mentioned people struggling when they go into
16:03church. It isn't just that the cults control the information. They set this
16:08cult structure of the church such that the church is made and intended to
16:13control the people. Whereas in real Christianity, the church is made to help
16:19the people. It's for the people. It's a community. But they have manipulated the
16:24minds to think falsely that they are there to serve the church instead of the
16:30church being there to serve them. And so they feel this need, even though they're
16:36in pain, going to church because they feel like they have to serve the church.
16:40They have to be there every Sunday. And it took me a long time to come to the
16:45terms with there's a point of time in which you need to heal. And sometimes
16:50that healing means that you do have to stay away from church. You have to let
16:56your mind heal and then take small doses, right? So when I started, when that came
17:01on to me, I was actually, I was still going, but I would mentally tune it
17:07out while I was there. I purposefully tuned it out, maybe five sermons in a
17:13row, and then listen to the sixth one. I know that sounds crazy, but I was taking
17:17small doses of church that I could handle. And that's the way I got through
17:22it. Now there came a point of time in which I realized that, you know, that
17:27isn't a good way to do it. And I finally just, I would limit how much I would go.
17:32And if the topic that they were preaching, I would sometimes ask the
17:37pastor, what are you preaching on next? And if the topic was something that I
17:41knew was going to trigger me, I would either mentally check out or physically
17:45check out. And I think that if you've been in a cult, you need to rewire the
17:51way of thinking about church. The church is there to serve you, not you to serve
17:55the church. Absolutely. Well, I just think that these podcasts help in so many ways.
18:02The factual historical data is one thing, and the pastoral advice and just
18:09common-sense education is another. Well, once those two newspapers printed what
18:15they did, those are just relatively small-time northeastern Indiana
18:20newspapers, but once both of them did, then it hit the big market. So it got to
18:26Chicago, it got to New York City. New York City Papers did it. Time magazine
18:31did an article. Charisma magazine did an article. Jamie Buckingham, who was a part
18:38of that shepherdship group down in the Florida, the Melbourne, Florida area, he
18:43did an article on it. Christianity Today did an article. If I remember correctly,
18:49Nightline, that was hosted back in those days by Ted Koppel in August of 1983. Ted
18:55Koppel was the articulate guy with all the big puffy hair. I think in
19:01August of 83, Nightline did an article. But you've got to remember that, you
19:08know, people would say, well, why didn't followers of Hobart Freeman and Faith
19:12Assembly read these articles and see what was going on? No, no, no, no. They're
19:17not allowed to read the newspaper. Those are called filthy rags. They can't watch
19:22television. TV stands for trashy vision. Those things were outlawed. So we're back
19:29to what you said earlier. The input of information is being controlled by whom?
19:35By the leadership. And anytime, this is what people need to realize, anytime
19:41anybody is limiting your input, you know, the input of the outside world
19:47into your life, you need to kiss them goodbye. You know, we're all adults.
19:52We need to be able to read the information, sort through it ourselves,
19:57discern what we think is factual, what we think is not, and make our own
20:02conclusions. So, I mean, it just, it lit a brush fire everywhere when the big
20:09market outlets got ahold of those local stories. And, you know, it wasn't, we're
20:15talking about 1984. We're not long after Jonestown massacre. That was fresh in the
20:22memory of the American public. And, you know, Jim Jones had been on the same
20:27platform, as you know, with William Branham, and was a colleague of Branham.
20:34And Hobart was a follower of Branham. So, I mean, you don't have to hop, skip and
20:38jump very far. And I'm not saying Hobart Freeman was a Jim Jones, but I'm just
20:44saying what I'm saying, that Jim Jones and Branham were together and Hobart
20:49followed Branham. And I don't think any of these leaders knew exactly how to
20:56extricate themselves from, you know, all of the wrong that they heard. But the
21:02problem that Indiana was facing was, yes, deaths had happened. Now they are
21:09documented. And the way those newspapers documented them, if you look at those
21:13articles, they have not all of 100, because a lot of those were in other
21:17states, but they have most of them that were in those surrounding counties. Well,
21:22they just do an open records request, and they get death certificates, and they
21:26know who this person was, how old they were, and when they died and how they
21:31died. So you would say, well, why don't the police just go round these people up?
21:35Well, you can't because people have to break a law before they're criminally
21:42liable for that. And there has to be a law in place to break. And there wasn't.
21:48That was the problem that Indiana had been dealing with in the last couple of
21:53years leading up to this. The federal place, CDC, the Center for Disease
22:00Control in Atlanta, had done a study in the county surrounding the Glory Barn
22:08and the new building in Wilmot. And I think that would probably be Kosciuszko,
22:14Noble County, maybe Elkhart County. There were several counties in
22:18northeastern Indiana that the CDC did a study on from 1975 to 1982. And they
22:28determined that the maternal death rate in those two or three counties wasn't
22:36double or triple. It was 100 times what it was in the rest of the state of
22:41Indiana. Now, I've got people, you know, who are still trying to follow Freeman
22:47say, well, you know, they're lying in their statistics. But, you know, that's
22:53just what cult people do. They absolutely refuse to listen to the facts. They don't
22:58believe their facts. They believe that the devil, the enemy, is behind all of
23:03that. And he's just trying to bring down God's people. But we're God's minister.
23:09We're right back to the fact that they're trying to control the, you know,
23:14these people's source of information, and we just need to be allowed to read it
23:18for yourself. So what happened was the Indiana State Legislature got involved,
23:25you know, the district attorneys couldn't prosecute, law enforcement
23:28couldn't arrest people if there wasn't a law in place. And what was really
23:33interesting was the problem that the state of Indiana had was not unique to
23:39them. This was a problem nationwide, because in 1974, talking about 10 years
23:47prior to this, Congress passed the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act,
23:53which read, no parent or guardian who in good faith is providing for a child's
24:01treatment solely by spiritual means shall for that reason alone be considered
24:07to have neglected the child. That was a federal law in place as of 1974. And
24:16states that would try to buck that would not be eligible for federal funds. And
24:22what is most interesting is to find out who the main lobbying group was before
24:30Congress to get that bill passed in 1974. And it was Mary Baker Eddy's group,
24:37Christian Science. And what's so interesting about Christian Science is
24:41they have this similar belief to Faith Assembly that, you know, the sickness, the
24:48pain, the illness, the disease, you know, it's more in your mind than it is in
24:53your body. You know, they basically deny the reality. I won't say that Hobart's
24:57teachings denied the reality and in doctrine, but in practice, it absolutely
25:03did. People who were supposed to be on their insulin got off their insulin. And
25:08if they saw any worsening conditions, they just bled the blood of Jesus and
25:13rebuked it in Jesus name and said, be gone and said, I'm healed. And then what?
25:18Then they died. So there's not a lot of difference. I mean, there might be an
25:23inch difference on a bridge between Christian Science and Hobart Freeman's
25:27teaching. But the states were kind of up against a wall because of this federal
25:34law. So they had to work with the federal government. And when the federal
25:40Center for Disease Control, you know, saw and was able to provide these
25:44statistics that the maternal death rate was 100 times in the Faith Assembly area
25:49as compared to what it was in the rest of Indiana. Well, then they were ready to
25:54get involved and do something about it. So on February 9th, in Indiana, the state
25:59legislature, a bill was introduced to eliminate religious objections as a
26:05defense in a case where death resulted from a child being denied medical care.
26:13Now, this child still died. All that is doing is is kicking the can down the
26:17road. If you don't provide medical care, if the child dies, if you end up in
26:24court, now you can no longer use this federal exemption of providing a
26:30spiritual aid to the child as your defense. Still doesn't help the child.
26:35Yeah, he's still dead. It still doesn't protect people in the future. But they
26:39were working their way towards protection. Then on June the 1st, they
26:44passed another law where parents, with a religious objection to medical
26:51treatment for their children, if the child became ill in any serious way, they
26:56had to report it to child welfare officials. So that at least alerted them
27:01to the fact that in this home, in this county, there's a child who is ill whose
27:07parents do not plan to provide any medical treatment. And they went on to
27:14pass some other laws. So now the stage is set for law enforcement whose hands
27:21have been tied prior to this, for the county attorneys whose hands have been
27:26tied prior to this, to deal with the next faith assembly death where a child is
27:32involved and medicine has been withheld. And they didn't have to wait long. The
27:37first case happened on August the 28th of 1984, where Gary and Margaret Hall
27:44were convicted in the death of their child. On September the 24th, a month
27:51later in 1984, Gary Hall was sentenced to five years in prison, five years in
27:59prison for the death of this child. The judge in the case was willing to offer a
28:06suspended sentence to the wife, Margaret Hall. We're talking about a woman in her
28:10late 20s and a man in his early 30s, a young couple. The judge was willing to
28:16offer a suspended sentence if she would provide medical care for her remaining
28:23for her living children. And her response, I quote, based on my convictions and based
28:30on my fear of God Almighty, I cannot provide medical care for myself or for
28:37my children. And the judge then subsequently sentenced her to five years
28:44in prison as well. So they were asked, are they going to appeal? They said no.
28:52Ten minutes later, they were back in court saying we changed our mind. I can't
28:57imagine, John, young people like this up against the state and federal government.
29:03You're way out of your league in a legal setting like that with no attorney. They were taught by
29:09Hobart Freeman, you do not defend yourself. You do not hire an attorney. You simply trust the Lord.
29:14Where is that in the Bible? That you can't have an attorney to represent you in some
29:19case since we live in a land of laws called the United States of America. And thank God that we
29:26do. I can't imagine the fear that those people had to have dealt with. That's why 10 minutes later,
29:34they're back in court saying we're going to appeal it, because if you appeal,
29:38then they're going to be released on their own recognizance and they can go on home until a
29:43sentencing date arrives. It's such a weird history, the legal. We in the Branham Culp,
29:51we were manipulated with the same thing. You don't take your brother to court. You don't take
29:55and when they use the quote unquote brother, they meant anyone. You don't take anyone to court
30:01because these cult leaders, man, if they kill you, if you follow the cult's manipulation and somebody
30:08who is in your family gets sick or dies because you tried the faith healing instead of the medicine,
30:13well, they don't want you to sue them. So obviously they don't want you to take your
30:17brother to court. But what where it gets really interesting is if you follow the patterns back
30:22through history, there were people in northern Indiana who were in Dowie's cult of personality
30:29who their children died because of the same medical neglect and they were prosecuted.
30:38And Dowie, who had in today's money, it was near half a billion dollars if I remember right,
30:45it became this big battle between him and the legal system and the news. And Dowie set the
30:52precedent which was followed all throughout latter rain and beyond that if the news reported
30:58anything that was critical of the movement, the news was working with the devil. And so therefore
31:05don't believe any critical information. Do your mind stopping thing, right? But if the news ever
31:12printed anything that was in favor, they would hold it up in front of the church and look, even
31:18the news says this. Well, then that got hypercharged with the birth of Christian identity
31:25because the Christian identity movement branded all news and television as being the quote unquote
31:33Jews. And the Jews were the bad guys. They were the false Jews. And so you'll find that all
31:38throughout the latter rain. And so they became further amplified. You can't watch television,
31:43which is you mentioned that earlier. Basically, they're controlling all information so that you
31:49don't sue them so that if they get if they become part of a some sort of a civil suit or criminal
31:57suit, even the witnesses have been tampered with. When they bring people of the cult to testify,
32:03the information they have has been tampered with. They're they're severely limited in what they
32:08know. Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started or how the progression of modern
32:14Pentecostalism transition through the latter rain, charismatic and other fringe movements
32:20into the new apostolic reformation? You can learn this and more on William Branham Historical
32:26Research's website, William-Branham.org. On the books page of the website, you can find the
32:33compiled research of John Collins, Charles Paisley, Stephen Montgomery, John McKinnon,
32:38and others with links to the paper, audio, and digital versions of each book. You can also find
32:45resources and documentation on various people and topics related to those movements. If you
32:51want to contribute to the cause, you can support the podcast by clicking the contribute button at
32:56the top. And as always, be sure to like and subscribe to the audio or video version that
33:02you're listening to or watching. On behalf of William Branham Historical Research, we want to
33:07thank you for your support. Yeah, it's interesting you're talking about them protecting themselves
33:12from lawsuit because I've actually got what Hobart said. And I'm jumping the gun. We'll get to this
33:19in a later discussion. But Hobart ended up in court himself. He was he was being sued. He was
33:24indicted. He was arrested. He was fingerprinted. And whenever it was his time to say what he
33:31believed, didn't believe, what he had taught and hadn't taught, he flat out, he flat out lied
33:38to protect his own skin. He had taught over and over, you don't go to doctor, doctors. But when
33:44it was, you know, when rubber was getting ready to meet the road, and those bars were going to slam
33:50behind him, I will give you the quote at a later time where he said, Oh, no, I never taught that.
33:55Well, it's only on hundreds of tapes. You know, it's only on hundreds of tapes. It's not like
34:01you've got to search Jerusalem with a lamp in order to find the one obscure time that he said
34:06that. But back to the poor Hall. So so they're both going to go to prison. They're released.
34:12They're allowed to go. About two days later, the presiding judge realized that he had made a
34:19mistake. Because Gary Hall had a felony sodomy conviction on the record. And if you have that,
34:31then you're not even if you're appealing, you're not allowed to go on your own recognizance,
34:36you have to remain in jail. So two days later, they hunt Gary down, they arrest him, and they
34:43put him in jail for a prior felony sodomy conviction. If you listen to some of Hobart
34:50Freeman's tapes during this time, let me give you one example. It is entitled The Call That God
34:56Answers. It is tape M-376-3. In this message, what is what is so frustrating, and it makes you angry
35:12when you hear it. Hobart is stressing that many times there is a deeper purpose in our trial than
35:21simply escaping the present circumstances that we're under. And Hobart was a master at using
35:29the scripture, pulling it out of context and applying it to himself or to the current situation.
35:34So he went to Jeremiah 32, where Jeremiah, who was in prison for the right reason,
35:42because he was prophesying God's word against the southern kingdom of Judah,
35:48and he was put in prison and he stayed there a while, eventually he did get out. But
35:53Hobart uses that as an example of sometimes it might not be God's will to get you out of prison.
36:02Sometimes you may just have to stay there. At the 10 minute and 16 second mark, I quote,
36:10there are worse things than going to prison. I can't think of too many worse myself, by the way.
36:15There are worse things than going to prison. It happened all the time to the prophets and Paul
36:22and the apostles, and they just rejoiced, end of quote. Well, yeah, but they were in prison for
36:28the right reason. It wasn't a sodomy conviction and it wasn't the death of an infant. They were
36:34always in there for preaching and prophesying the word of God. And then later towards the very, very
36:43end of this message, I quote, Lord, why don't you just run into that jail and bring out brother
36:50Hall like you did Peter, end of quote, which is showing this happened after brother Hall actually
36:58went to prison. But you know, John, it's just such a flippant, unconcerned approach, actually using,
37:08I mean, the way they take the circumstances and twist them to their own advantage. Like you said,
37:16don't read the newspaper. Oh, there's a favorable article about us. Let's bring that to church and
37:21show everyone. Oh, it's not favorable. Don't read it. Oh, it's favorable. Let's bring that to church.
37:25Come on guys. Let's be consistent. You got to be consistent. And so how he takes this poor guy
37:34who's in prison and look, I'm going to say this and I stand to be corrected if anybody has the
37:40facts, but the facts wouldn't be somebody told you that somebody told you. The facts would be the
37:45facts. But I dare say, John, that I doubt Dr. Freeman went and visited brother Hall in prison.
37:53Now maybe he did. I could be totally wrong, but you know, you give me the log entrance for the
38:00visitors that day in the prison and you show me Dr. Freeman's signature and I will recant what I
38:05am about to say. But I would suspect no, he doesn't care about that guy. He's going to use him as a
38:13sermon illustration like, and also to protect himself, like God's probably not going to deliver
38:19him. He's probably going to stay there forever. So let's preach a sermon, indoctrinating people,
38:26getting people in the mindset of, yeah, some of you are going to prison and don't expect God to
38:31get you out because sometimes being there is the trial of your faith and he has more he wants to
38:38teach you in jail than out of jail. I think he was just setting up the whole congregation.
38:44For anybody who now is convicted under this new Indiana law and who's going to end up in jail or
38:50in prison, guess what? They're going to stay there. And what would any normal pastor do?
38:55Well, you'd be down there the next day. That's what any normal pastor would do because a pastor
39:01is the shepherd of his people. He wants to protect them. He wants to comfort them. He wants to
39:07console them. He doesn't only want to keep them from error and teach them the truth. That's like
39:14the only thing Hobart thought a pastor was supposed to do is rescue everyone from the error of their
39:21ways and teach them my truth. There are so many roles involved in being a leader of people and
39:28chief among them has to be your spirit of love and service. And I would, I'm still going to say
39:35until someone can prove me otherwise, I bet he didn't go visit the guy. This is your pastor.
39:41You know, we read a letter earlier where the woman said my sacrifice a life for Hobart Freeman and I
39:48don't think he even knew their name. Here's a guy who's sacrificed even more. So he's gone to jail.
39:55That means you lost your job. You know, you're probably going to lose your home. Your wife is
39:59going to end up, your kids destitute or depending on family and church members.
40:07The most you can do is go and, you know, beseech the judge on his behalf, which Hobart wouldn't
40:15do. The least you could do is go visit the man in prison and carry him food and console him. And
40:22you know, so that is always stuck in my crawl. Obviously that's bothered me when I hear him use
40:29Brother Hall's name on a tape, like poor Brother Hall is in prison. Thank God the rest of us are
40:35still here at Faith Assembly. I'm preaching and you're listening. I just thought it was terrible.
40:40So that was the first big case. And then right out on the heels of that, John, on September 11th,
40:45David and Kathleen Bergman, they were the next ones. They were sentenced on October the 29th of
40:521984 to 10 years in prison. The judge gave the wife the same opportunity, Mrs. Bergman,
41:01as he had given Margaret Hall. And she said, no, sir, your honor, I cannot go against the Lord.
41:09I have to stand by my husband. And there's a picture of them coming out with the court-appointed
41:17attorney and the sheriff's deputy. He's smiling. She's not coming out of the courthouse building.
41:26You know, what can I say? It's just these podcasts can be, you know, in your heart and
41:35your spirit. They can be a little depressing. Oh, yeah. You know, and I can't imagine how much you
41:41had to deal with it. But it is a little depressing because I just feel so sorry for these people
41:46who gave and sacrificed so much and received so little in return.
41:52It tugs at your emotions. One of the things that you mentioned,
41:56you know, talking about Hobart Freeman using the sermon content to fit the situation,
42:03to manipulate the minds, that goes back to something that we were discussing earlier,
42:09how sometimes it's triggering for people to go to their new church. And sometimes they
42:15don't even understand why. And it took me a while really to put this one together. But
42:21I feel like it's very common, especially among some of the ex-cult members I've spoken with.
42:29There's a book called Propaganda by Edward Bernays, who is the nephew of Sigmund Freud.
42:35And I read it because, oddly enough, on a plane trip, I was recommended as an ex-cult member,
42:43I needed to read this by a psychologist who was sitting next to me on the trip.
42:47So I read it and all of a sudden my whole world comes apart because I realized that every technique
42:54of manipulating the minds that's in that book, I could identify with the religion that I escaped.
43:01But the concept that was difficult for me to understand was this. There is manipulation
43:09for evil purposes, and there is sometimes manipulation for good purposes that does not
43:16have an ill intent. And one of the examples of this was like a child trying to convince them
43:25to take their medicine. I think that's in that book or it's in one similar, but you give just
43:31a spoonful of honey makes the medicine go down kind of thing, right? It is manipulation, but
43:36it's for a good cause. Well, the problem is that when you're in these cults, it's not a good cause.
43:43And you can sense that something is wrong, but because you're manipulated under the control,
43:48you don't raise any critical thought. But then once you enter into a new church,
43:54you'll find that the sermon content suddenly starts matching the things that are happening
43:59in the church, and you feel that it's manipulation in some cases, but it may not necessarily be bad.
44:06But you begin to associate that with what happened to you in the cult, and your world comes apart
44:11because you feel like what they're saying is for a purpose of driving your mind to go a certain
44:17direction rather than just preaching from the Bible for a, you know, reading chronologically
44:22and going through the Bible. And so there's this fine line that you have to walk between,
44:27well, is it a healthy manipulation or is it an unhealthy manipulation? Yeah, yeah. I mean,
44:33this is ex-cult member 101, I guess, John. And they have heard, you know, these false tenets
44:41have just been pounded into them. And I don't want to say that then the reverse needs to happen,
44:47that the truth needs to be pounded into them. It's not that it needs to be pounded, but it's
44:52almost as though, I mean, you don't make an exit from a cult overnight, even if you physically
45:00can remove yourself from the actual premises of the place. You know, working with the mind
45:09is just a long, long-term process. And as I have read the sad, sad stories of the people who have
45:20experienced the fallout of faith assembly, it is years and years. I just, you would just think,
45:28I mean, I'm showing my naivete by expressing how shocked I am over this. I'm obviously not a cult
45:36expert, but I would think, you know, two or three years or four years or five years or something
45:43would be enough time. And maybe for some people it is, but, you know, I would say for the majority,
45:49no, it is. And does it ever really totally, completely undo itself? I don't know. I mean,
45:58if you could get 90% or 98%, that's probably enough to be happy with that. But I'm reading
46:05these people's comments and I just see, wow, it's just so hard to extricate themselves from that.
46:12One person who had sent me a message said, you know, we're trying to interpret the Bible and
46:17they really are, I believe in their group, they are honestly trying to interpret. And this person
46:24said, but when we arrive at our interpretation, we're not sure if we're right or we're wrong.
46:30And they said, I think it's because our whole problem is we don't know how to read the Bible.
46:36We don't know how to interpret it. It has been done falsely in front of us and for us by our
46:43leadership for so many years. It's just, it's this patchwork quilt of snatching things out of context
46:51and sewing them together and wrapping a rubber band around it and delivering it and saying, there,
46:56that's the gospel of Christ that, yeah, people don't know how to interpret the Bible. And so if
47:03they hear a podcast like this, thankfully I have not received very much negative response.
47:14It's mostly been positive. But if they hear a podcast like this, you know, they want to attack
47:19the podcast because we're attacking their leader. But that's what their leader taught them is make
47:26sure you defend me because I'm God's anointed, touch not mine anointed and do my prophets no harm.
47:32Make sure you defend me at all costs. And that's not the name of the game. The name of the game,
47:38it should be truth. We should be truth seekers. We should be after the truth at all costs.
47:44And that would mean if I have to admit I'm wrong, if you have to admit you're wrong,
47:48if they have to admit they're wrong, if we're all wrong and we all are somewhere in our life,
47:54that's the only way we're going to arrive at the truth. But look, once these articles came out,
47:59I was able to track this down. Once those articles came out in that Northern Indiana newspaper,
48:04there was an Illinois satellite meeting. And I'm not going to name names on this one. The
48:10people that were a part of it will probably be able to put the pieces of the puzzle together.
48:15But in that satellite meeting in Illinois, Satellite of Faith Assembly on September the 30th
48:22of 1983, the minister of that group stood up and told his people about this brutal killing
48:31of a Fort Wayne, Indiana newspaper editor and his entire family. Someone had come in the house,
48:38killed the man, killed his wife, killed the son. And remember, that was the paper that did,
48:45the first one, that did the four-part series on faith assembly earlier that spring.
48:50And the minister said, that's God's judgment, quote, or opposing the kingdom of God and his
48:58prophets. So mark it on your calendar, end of quote. Can you imagine the fear in those people's
49:06minds when they heard the minister? Because he just quoted a statistic, you know, a fact,
49:11you know, this Fort Wayne, Indiana newspaper editor, the same paper that a couple of months
49:17earlier in the spring of 83 had published this series of articles against the kingdom of God and
49:23God's prophets. And look what he gets for opposing them. And then he said, mark it down on your
49:30calendar. The problem was some of us did mark it down on our calendar. And if you mark it down on
49:37your calendar, then you find out that that editor, whose name was Dan Osborne, had nothing to do
49:44with the articles written against faith assembly. So people say, oh, but he worked for the paper.
49:50Well, I guess God flung his arrow at the wrong person. You know, he worked for the paper in
49:57general, but he's not the two reporters that did it or the editor responsible for that. He worked
50:02for the paper, right? No, he wasn't even hired by the Fort Wayne paper until after those articles
50:11were published. That's incredible. It's this misinformation. It's lying to the people. It's
50:19deceiving the people. And to me, John, it's just absolutely disgusting. So even though sometimes
50:26I get depressed, I'm still happy to do these podcasts with you. You know, I've sat through
50:31sermons where they did something similar. Somebody in the church who had questioned the church and
50:37had left, they died and then they bring it up randomly. They'll be preaching and then venting
50:44and railing something or another and then say, and remember, brother, so-and-so who died after
50:50questioning this. This message is how they termed it in the Branham cults. But in the back of your
50:57mind that gets seared and suddenly you have this fear to leave. And that's one of the tools of
51:02control and manipulation. And it is just so sad to watch that happen.
51:07Yeah, John, I remember when I was a young man in my twenties and began to see things
51:12wrong with faith assembly, you know, and I would kind of chip away at it, but I can remember,
51:18you know, that's been 40 years ago. It's hard to remember, but I know there were times where I had
51:23some fear and trepidation in my life because obviously I would think, who am I? You know,
51:28I'm a 23, 26-year-old nobody. You know, I'm not Dr. Hobart Edward Freeman with all these degrees
51:37and all this prestige. So, you know, I couldn't possibly be right. You know, I would just by
51:44virtue of age difference and education and experience difference, I would have to be,
51:50if anybody's wrong of the two of us, it would have to be me. And, you know, I would assume that.
51:56And then I'd read my Bible again and say, no, I don't think I am wrong. No, I don't think I am,
52:03because I think I'm reading it for exactly what it says. And I think he's twisting it.
52:09And that was always my savior at the end of the day, thankfully, is what does the Bible
52:15actually say? You don't have to know Greek or Hebrew either. What does it actually say
52:21without trying to twist it and make it fit into any formula? What does it actually say?
52:27And, you know, that was my relief. If it actually said that, I thought, wow, I can't believe I'm
52:35getting ready to saw this limb off behind me that I'm perched on, my connection to faith
52:40assembly. I'm getting ready to saw the limb off and I'm on the end of the limb.
52:43But, you know, it's what the Bible says, and I'm just going to stay with it.
52:47Yeah, one of the things that hit me after I left the cult and just gobsmacked me was the fact that
52:53the way that the Bible was manipulated, like you said, you almost felt like you didn't know
52:59how to read it. And all throughout the latter rain movement, they had this phrase that they
53:05twisted out of context and reversed its meaning that said the Bible is of no private interpretation,
53:12which if you read that passage, it means literally that you hold no secret that anybody
53:18else can't read for themselves, right? They twisted it so badly. But what the
53:25British Israel movement did to religion, especially in the United States, was because
53:33the people felt like they were one of the lost ten tribes of Israel, these geniuses, and I'm
53:40quoting that, quote unquote geniuses, believed that they could take certain passages and then
53:46marry them with other passages that may not even be in the same book and then apply it to the
53:51church today because they've made this new cocktail of scripture, right? And I just got,
53:58you know, after I left this thing and I started thinking about how absurd that was,
54:03simply look at, you know, one of Paul's letters. It would be like if I wrote you a letter
54:07and I send it to you, I'm writing you a letter from start to finish and you're going to read it
54:12start to finish, you're not going to go pull up the book of Job and say, look, I can understand
54:18John better because I've read this single verse from the book of Job. It would be like if you
54:23were to read my book and you were to also read it through the book of Dilbert. You know, you can make
54:29it say whatever you want it to say. But that's what these guys are doing. And the problem is
54:35people have been manipulated into thinking that they can't understand it because it's so confusing
54:42when simply they could just open it up and read it. Well, I've got a couple of these ex-ministers
54:48who are wanting a meeting with me. I hope I come back alive. If I don't come and bury my bones,
54:53okay, I'm headed into the lion's den. Although from the conversation, he was very cordial,
54:59very nice, very wonderful. I don't anticipate anything bad. But I mean, what a great journey
55:08my life has been and I've loved every minute of it. Well, this will probably come out after
55:16your meeting, so we'll be able to tell by the next podcast whether everything turned. I'm certain
55:22it'll turn out okay. I've been confronted by quite a few people. I usually avoid the ones physically
55:28and we'll have Zoom meetings or whatever. But anyway, this has been fun. There's much, much
55:35more, so we'll have to pick up where we left off. And if you've enjoyed our show and you want more
55:40information, you can check us out on the web. You can find us at william-branham.org. For an
55:45overview of the historical research of William Branham and the healing revivals, read Preacher
55:50Behind the White Hoods, A Critical Examination of William Branham and His Message, available on
55:55Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.